


The Common Lot

by MrProphet



Category: The Tempest - Shakespeare
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-22 23:23:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10707309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrProphet/pseuds/MrProphet





	The Common Lot

See there a ship that founders in this storm,  
Born of that curs’ed devilry in which  
My Master, Noble Prospero has of late  
Grown so proficient and powerful.  
Well do I know that he has long prepared  
This fell and dreadful work to practice so  
To bring good king and treacherous brother  
Helpless to the island which he styles his own.  
Yet in his o’erweening ambition  
Focused so ‘pon vengeance and redemption  
Thinks he only of the great and noble,  
Caring not for those men of low estate  
Whose well-being should all his thoughts consume,  
Would he truly own the style of Noble  
Prospero Duke of Milan and keeper  
Of the people of that poor benighted town.  
O, Prospero, why thinks thou not of we  
The poor and small whose lives you tamper with  
To quench your thirst for power and that rough  
Beast to which you give the name of justice  
But which I who labour in your name must  
Call an act of vanity and revenge.  
What care you, Duke of Milan, for sailors?  
If they hold not a noble title, then  
What matter it to you if they should drown?  
Is’t not their place to perish that you may  
Return in pomp to your fine palaces  
And give your daughter, the fair Miranda,  
In marriage to a boy she does not know  
To buy with love the favour of a king  
So weak and fickle that he can not tell  
A traitor’s lies from a good man’s promise  
As you yourself have oft avowed in anger.  
Let those men of that ship, whose births are good,  
Stand high upon their lofty names and so  
Survive the storm which drowns many a man  
Whose birth is poor, though his heart be honest  
And who, in death, may save a baron’s life  
And so by the lights of your brave, new world  
Buy a place at the heavenly table  
Though it be, I am sure, at the table’s foot.  
So be it, so is the lot, of we who  
Strive without thanks or payment for the good  
Of our noble and most kindly masters.  
Such is the lot of sailor and soldier,  
And such is the lot of poor Caliban.  
Prospero, Duke of Milan, cares not.


End file.
